Posted: Wednesday, 24 June 2009 11:12AM
The Man Is Smokin'
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Gimme a pack of Baracks.
How about a carton of Hope?
The newest poster for college students’ rooms across America would show the president posing with a Kool filter stuck in his mouth.
Whoa, how cool is Barack, now?
Not cool at all.
And now that the president has signed into law new federal regulations for tobacco, we can’t let him off the hook.
Obama is a cigarette smoker.
And if I were a tobacco company executive, I’d market millions of new cigarettes in a colorful package that looks like the campaign colors of change and I’d call them Baracks.
Gimme a pack of Baracks.
Has a nice ring to it, huh, kids?
Better than Joe Camel any day.
Countless young smokers would fall for the ploy. Old smokers would buy into the marketing plan because Barack is the man and Barack is a smoker.
Gimme a carton of Hope.
I’d market Hope because countless young people who supported Obama as the change we can believe in would follow his lead.
And Obama is a smoker.
Yeah, I know he said yesterday that he’s 95 percent cured.
That’s like being 95 percent pregnant.
Either you smoke or you don’t.
And Barack is smoking.
Obama said that he’s not making sweeping changes in tobacco regulation for people his age.
He said he’s doing it for the children.
What’s he doing for the children? Lying about his addiction? Downplaying his deceit by refusing to tell us how much he smokes, where he smokes, and under what circumstances he smokes?
Smoking is a public health menace, even for White House aides who might be subjected to second-hand smoke whenever and wherever the president decides to light up.
I asked Obama about his addiction during the campaign.
He agreed that his smoking was an issue and said he was struggling to stay off cigarettes.
But I wonder if he ever actually quit. Or is he just a light smoker, which is still dangerous. Mr. Cool is stone cold dishonest if he refuses to provide details about his secret smoking life.
What kind of example is that to set for kids and adults?
I will not be surprised if tobacco executives actually do manufacture millions of packs of Baracks and Hope brands that target the black community, who have already been targeted by hustler tobacco company dealers who know that blacks smoke and die regularly because of cigarette-related disease.
And you know what will happen if companies do produce these brands?
Blacks will smoke them. Hip white kids will smoke them. Kids will smoke them.
Barack himself might even smoke them.
Meanwhile Barack will continue to sneak smokes in the Rose Garden or wherever else he decides to take his nicotine fix.
If I can quit, Barack can quit. It took me three long years to kick the two-pack-a-day-plus habit.
But you have to want to quit. If you fail, as Obama has failed, you have to be honest with yourself and try again.
Barack needs to be more forthcoming about his addiction. If he doesn’t, he can take credit for kids and adults looking to him as a poor role model.
Enough poor role models exist as it is.
The last thing America needs is another president who’s blowing smoke.
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Corbett
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